But the most remarkable of all is the village of Bwoytalu, whose inhabitants are at the same time the most despised pariahs, the most dreaded sorcerers, and the most skilful and industrious craftsmen in the island. They belong to several sub-clans, all originating in the neighbourhood of the village, near which also, according to tradition, the original sorcerer came out of the soil in the form of a crab. They eat the flesh of bush-pigs, and they catch and eat the stingaree, both objects of strict taboos and of genuine loathing to the other inhabitants of Northern Boyowa. For this reason they are despised and regarded as unclean by the others. In olden days they would have to crouch lower and more abjectly than anyone else. No man or woman would mate with anyone from Bwoytalu, whether in marriage or in an intrigue. Yet in wood carving, and especially in the working out of the wonderful, round dishes, in the manufacture of plaited fibre work, and in the production of combs, they are far more skilful than anyone else, and acknowledged to be such; they are the wholesale manufacturers of these objects for export, and they can produce work not to be rivalled by any other village.
The five villages lying on the western coast of the northern half, on the shores of the Lagoon, form the district of Kulumata. They are all fishing villages, but differ in their methods, and each has its own fishing grounds and its own methods of exploiting them.5 The district is much less homogeneous than any of those before mentioned. It possesses no paramount chief, and even in war the villagers used not to fight on the same side. But it is impossible to enter here into all these shades and singularities of political organisation.
In the southern part of Boyowa, there is first the province of Luba, occupying the waist of the island, the part where it narrows down to a long isthmus. This part is ruled by a chief of high rank, who resides in Olivilevi. He belongs to the same family as the chief of Omarakana, and this southern dominion is the result of a younger line’s having branched off some three generations ago. This happened after an unsuccessful war, when the whole tribe of Kiriwina fled south to Luba, and lived there for two years in a temporary village. The main body returned afterwards, but a number remained behind with the chief’s brother, and thus the village of Olivilevi was founded.
Wawela, which was formerly a very big village, now consists of hardly more than twenty huts. The only one on the Eastern shore which lies right on the sea, it is very picturesquely situated, overlooking a wide bay with a clean beach. It is of importance as the traditional centre of astronomical knowledge. From here, for generation after generation up to the present day, the calendar of the natives has been regulated. This means that some of the most important dates are fixed, especially that of the great annual festival, the Milamala, always held at full moon.
Again, Wawela is one of the villages where the second form of sorcery, that of the flying witches, has its main Trobriand home. In fact, according to native belief, this form of sorcery has its seat only in the Southern half, and is unknown to the women in the North, though the Southern witches extend their field of operations all over Boyowa. Wawela, which lies facing the East, and which is always in close touch with the villages of Kitava and the rest of the Marshall Bennetts, shares with these islands the reputation of harbouring many women who can fly, kill by magic, who also feed on corpses, and are especially dangerous to seamen in peril.
Further down to the South, on the Western shore of the Lagoon, we come to the big settlement of Sinaketa, consisting of some six villages lying within a few hundred yards from one another, but each having its own headman and a certain amount of local characteristics. These villages form, however, one community for purposes of war and of the Kula. Some of the local headmen of Sinaketa claim the highest rank, some are